AGP 4x 8x compatability question

[Bacinator]

Thinking about picking up a radeon 9700 or one of the GeForce4 cards... My motherboard currently supports AGP4x, and has a GeForce 2 MMX440 64mb in now... It is an ECS P4ITA mobo. Is there any reason, why an AGP 8x card would not work, or fry my mobo? Cuz that would obviously be bad, but I would like to toy around with a newer card, to see if I do need to invest in new system. Thanks in advance!

 

[rectifire]

Pretty much all Video cards that are 8X AGP are backward compatible with 4X and 2X AGP. I know for sure that this is true with the Radeon 9700 series. If you are still unsure, check the specs for the individual vid card that you want to buy.

I'm actually using a Radeon 9700 Pro right now. It is rated to run up to 8X AGP, but I am using it in a motherboard that only supports 4X AGP. It states right on the package that it is 8X, 4X, 2X AGP compatible.


Here are the voltage levels that each AGP standard runs at:

AGP 2X: 3.3 Volts

AGP 4X: 1.5 Volts

AGP 8X: 0.8 Volts



A while back when AGP 4X just came out, there were some reports of video cards that were designed for 4X AGP only. When some poor unsuspecting soul put one of these video cards in a motherboard that only supported 2X AGP..........POOF!!! If you look at the voltages above, you can see why.

However, I don't think this is a problem with the new crop of video cards out there, as they should be compatible with all current AGP standards.

 

[Bacinator]

Cool beans... That's what I was hoping for... Just scoped BB, and found the same results on the various boxes, except from some of the shady GeForce manufacturers... Sneaky bastiches...

Thanks for the help tho!